Tag Archives: politics

Kyrgyzstan patches together new government coalition

BISHKEK, NOV. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan formed a new coalition government built around the Social Democratic Party, the party of President Almazbek Atmabayev, which kept Sooronbai Jeenbekov as PM.

The relative speed that parliament was able to patch together a government coalition will cheer investors and businesses who were worried about a prolonged period of instability. The previous government fell apart only 10 days ago over rows about an impending referendum.

Retaining Mr Jeenbekov, PM since May, will also boost confidence in Kyrgyzstan’s ability to withstand political stresses.

The new government coalition includes the Bir Bol and Kyrgyzstan parties, two minor parties. The coalition, though, only has a thin parliamentary majority with 68 seats in the 120-seat chamber.

A row over a referendum planned for Dec. 11 split the previous coalition government. The referendum focuses on giving more power to the PM, a shift that opponents of President Atambayev have said has been engineered to allow him to take the empowered PM job once he leaves the presidency next year. He has denied that he has such plans.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Georgian Dream secures massive election victory

TBILISI, OCT. 30 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — The Georgian Dream coalition won 48 of the 50 run-offs in majoritarian seats, securing a large enough majority to change Georgia’s constitution without needing support from other parties.

The run-off seats won by Georgian Dream were added to the 67 seats it won in the first round of voting on Oct. 8, giving it control of 115 seats in the 150-seat parliament, smashing their arch rivals the United National Movement party (UNM).

Georgia’s politics are notoriously fractious and while supporters of the Georgian Dream, led by billionaire and former PM Bidzina Ivanishvili, celebrated, election observers were wary of the powers they now wield over the constitution. Ignacio Sanchez Amor, head of the short- term OSCE observer mission, said a constitutional majority brought responsibility.

“The balance of power must be properly observed and rights of minorities must be at the centre of any discussion if there are constitutional changes,” media quoted him as saying.

Alongside the Georgian Dream, the Industrialists party and an independent candidate both won a seat. The UNM, the party of former President Mikheil Saakashvili, finished with the 27 seats, a disappointing result for the party which had talked up the chances of making a comeback and winning back control of parliament. It lost a 2012 parliamentary election to the Georgian Dream.

Dustin Gilbreath, a policy analyst at the Caucasus Research Resource Centre, said the UNM can still recover as a political power but it would be difficult.

“They can continue as a major opposition party, but they need to rebrand. I think they have the potential to stay in Georgian politics in the long run, but they first need to make things works internally”, he said.

Away from the celebrating Georgian Dream supporters, people in Tbilisi, people were worried about the lack of checks on its powers.

Levani, who runs a small grocery store in the city centre, said: “It’s just a disaster. The political stagnation that we witnessed in the last four years is bound to worsen now that no political actor has the power to compel them to act.”

Another Tbilisi resident, Ketino, agreed even though she had voted for the Georgian Dream. “I voted for them to avoid the return of UNM. Nothing good can come out from having too much power,” she said.

Georgian Dream, considered traditional and close to the Orthodox Church, has already said that it wants to change the constitution to enshrine marriage as a union only between a man and a woman.

The Orthodox Church is staunchly against gay rights and many of the Georgian Dreams’ supporters have been pushing to change Georgia’s constitution to reflect this attitude.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

US Court postpones decision on Uzbekistan’s late-President daughter

NOV. 3 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — A US judge postponed a final decision on the handling of illicit funds accumulated by Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Uzbekistan’s late-President Islam Karimov. Judge Andrew Carter ordered that the US and Uzbek parties will have to reach an agreement by the end of January 2017, a three-month extension on the previous deadline that expired on Nov. 2. The funds, around $600m which a US court had ring- fenced as illegal under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, are currently held in a Swiss bank account.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Georgian Dream’s election victory

NOV. 4 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> This has been a long election period in Georgia. Is it finally over?

>> I agree, it really has felt like a long process. This is partly because of the long campaign build up and partly because of Georgia’s complicated electoral system. There have been two main election rounds. The first on Oct. 8 was nationwide and included both a proportional representation element and a majoritarian element. At the end of this process, there were 50 seats which still had not elected a majoritarian MP. In these seats the top two candidates went head-to- head in a run-off on Oct. 31, giving the final tally.

>> Right. So to win a majoritarian seat you have to poll more than 50% of the votes. Is that right?

>> Yes, that’s right. A majoritarian seat, as the name suggests, is not a simple first-past-the-post system. The winner needs to poll more than half the votes, that’s why 50 seats needed a run-off.

>> So what is the final result? What is the breakdown?

>> Overall, the Georgian Dream won 115 seats out of the 150-seat parliament. This means they passed the 113-seat hurdle they needed to clear to allow them to change the constitution without relying on support from other parties. Georgian Dream won around 48% of the vote but the majoritarian system handed them a large majority. In 2012 the Georgian Dream won 85 seats, so this election represents a major success for them. By contrast the United National Movement party of Mikheil Saakashvili saw the number of seats it won collapse to 27 from 65. It was a disastrous election for them. Despite their fighting talk in the build up to the vote, voters essentially rejected the UNM and any possibility of a return to mainstream Georgian politics for Mikheil Saakashvili. He is currently the governor of the Odessa region in Ukraine. He’ll probably stay there for some time.

>> Is this it for the UNM, then?

>> That’s unclear but they need to have a major rebrand and to drop Saakashvili from their image. He comes with serious baggage, not least dire relations with Russia and allegations of torture in prisons during his time as president. The problem for the UNM is that he is such a dominating personality it might not be possible to just ditch him. To come back from that would represent quite a feat.

>> And, wasn’t there another party which did reasonably well?

>> Yes, the nationalistic and traditional Alliance of Patriots came up on the inside, unnoticed. It came third with just over 5% of the vote, giving it six seats in parliament. They are to the right of the Georgian Dream in their politics. The Industrialists party and an independent also won a seat each through the majoritarian system.

>> This gets complicated. So what does all this mean for Georgia?

>> Essentially this election confirms the Georgian Dream’s utter dominance. This is a crushing victory. On a policy level, the Georgian Dream has a constitutional majority to changes things as much as they want. They have already ripped up the form book in politics and they may want to do the same with society. They now have the power to do this and they have started already by promoting a change in the constitution that locks down marriage as an act only between man and woman. Georgian Dream has an agenda. They now have a four year window to impact how Georgian society operates. Expect some radical policies to come out of Georgia’s government in these four years.

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(News report from Issue No. 303, published on Nov. 4 2016)

Kyrgyzstan’s government coalition collapses

BISHKEK, OCT. 24 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s four-party coalition government collapsed after the Social Democrats withdrew their support for it, citing irreconcilable differences with their partners.

The break-up of the coalition ended Sooronbay Jeenbekov’s six month term as PM and forces parliament to try to patch together a third government in 2016. It also comes at a sensitive time for Kyrgyzstan’s young parliamentary democracy with only six weeks to go before a bitter and divisive referendum set for Dec. 11 on whether to boost the powers of the PM.

“We tried to keep the coalition, but the recent actions of certain individuals, now our former partners, exposed the problems,” a statement from the Social Democrats said. “We cannot be in coalition with those who are associated with the common interests of Akayev and Bakiyev and those who go against the national interests over constitutional reforms.”

References to Askar Akayev and Kurmanbek Bakiyev were to Kyrgyzstan’s two former presidents who were overthrown during revolutions in 2005 and 2010.

The Social Democrats are the party of President Almazbek Atambayev and he immediately charged them with forming a new government.

This will be difficult. The Social Democrats hold 38 of the 120-seat legislature and will have to make deals with some of the five other parties to patch together a government. If it fails, Mr Atambyaev will have to turn to another party to form a government or be forced to call a parliamentary election.

The collapse of the government underlines just how fragile Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary system is. Mr Jeenbekov was Kyrgyzstan’s sixth PM since constitutional changes in 2010 shifted power from the presidency to the PM.

Emil Joroev, a professor of Political Studies at the American University of Central Asia, said that the weak and short-lived governments were making Kyrgyzstan increasingly unstable.

“The collapse of the ruling coali- tion, and the corresponding fall of the government underscores the fragility of inter-party agreements the tendency of divisive single issues to trump over larger, encompassing development agendas, and the ease with which partners in a ruling coalition have been able to break it with no real accountability,” he said.

People in Bishkek had differing views on the collapse of the latest government. Some were frustrated but others just shrugged.

“We are not tired of changes, we are now used to seeing it this,” said Samat Joldoshbekov, 23.

The December referendum on extending the powers of the PM is controversial because opposition groups have accused Mr Atambayev of trying to take power by stealth.

The current constitution bars Mr Atambayev, 60, from standing in a presidential election next year but does not stop him from becoming PM later, a move that his opponents say he is planning.

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(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Turkmen President agrees to pardon prisoners

OCT. 27 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov agreed to pardon 1,523 jail inmates to celebrate the 25th anniversary of independence from the Soviet Union. Mass amnesties for major events are fairly commonplace in Central Asia. Amnesties are also used as a way of relieving overcrowding.

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(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Tajik President receives title

OCT. 26 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tajik MPs formally conferred on Tajik president Emomali Rakhmon the title of ‘Founder of independent Tajikistan’, media reported. They had voted to give him the title last year. Mr Rakhmon’s opponents accuse him of building a cult of personality.

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(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgyz governments sponsor films to promote themselves

OCT. 28 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Governments of the South Caucasus and Central Asia are sponsoring films to promote their various causes.

This season’s new releases includes a big screen version of Nino and Ali, the classic story of a romance between a Muslim Azerbaijani man and a Christian Georgian woman, which premiered in Baku this month.

It was sponsored by the state linked Heydar Aliyev centre. Leyla Aliyeva, daughter of president Ilham Aliyev, is listed in the credits as an executive producer.

The killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in eastern Turkey during the end of the Ottoman Empire, described as a genocide by

Armenia but denied by Turkey, has also been turned into a Hollywood film starring Christian Bale called The Promise. The reviews, so far, have been mixed.

In previous years Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Georgia have all directly or indirectly sponsored films to promote their causes too.

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(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Uzbek mayor talks on anti-divorce measures

OCT. 22 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rakhmonbek Usmanov, the mayor of Tashkent, has said that he will name and shame couples who are seeking a divorce, Voice of America reported on its website. Quoting local media, VOA said that Mr Usmanov had become so exasperated with the growing number of divorces in Tashkent that he has drawn up a plan to name divorcing couples on a popular radio station and also in a local evening newspaper.

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(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)

Acting Uzbek President wants court strengthened

OCT. 23 2016 (The Conway Bulletin) — Continuing his apparent charm offensive ahead of a presidential election on Dec. 4, acting Uzbek president Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed a decree to improve and strengthen the country’s judicial system. Media reported that the decree should strengthen the rights of the defendants and the independence of the courts. Human rights groups have said that the Uzbek state uses the courts to impose its political will.

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(News report from Issue No. 302, published on Oct. 28 2016)